News - Leafnode or alternatives? - Slackware

This is a discussion on News - Leafnode or alternatives? - Slackware ; Chaps,
currently use leafnode-2. What do other people use for news servers? Like
using knode plus leafnode-2 - prefer carring out the kill filing on the
server. Thing is, want to go some killfilling that is beyond what the
current ...

News - Leafnode or alternatives?

Chaps,

currently use leafnode-2. What do other people use for news servers? Like
using knode plus leafnode-2 - prefer carring out the kill filing on the
server. Thing is, want to go some killfilling that is beyond what the
current snapshot of leafnode-2 offers and both that and leafnode don't seem
to be undergoing much develment.

Could likely do what I want in INN - stopped using that years back when I
found I could not get suck to work for some unknown reason - and it was
simply too much trouble to configure - OK if you play with it weekly as a
news admin but too much to forget if you only tinker with the config once a
year.

Re: News - Leafnode or alternatives?

* Peter Chant wrote in alt.os.linux.slackware:
> Chaps,
>
> currently use leafnode-2. What do other people use for news servers?
> Like using knode plus leafnode-2 - prefer carring out the kill filing
> on the server. Thing is, want to go some killfilling that is beyond
> what the current snapshot of leafnode-2 offers

Such as?

--
David

Re: News - Leafnode or alternatives?

SINNER wrote:
> * Peter Chant wrote in alt.os.linux.slackware:
>
>> Chaps,
>>
>> currently use leafnode-2. What do other people use for news servers?
>> Like using knode plus leafnode-2 - prefer carring out the kill filing
>> on the server. Thing is, want to go some killfilling that is beyond
>> what the current snapshot of leafnode-2 offers
>
> Such as?
>

Max cross-posts would be a good start. Crossposts to certain newsgroups.
Leafnode-2 has replaced leafnode's filters with regular expressions - I
think this was why I switched from leafnode to leafnode 2. If comes to the
worst my delve into source and see if I could add functionality (and kill
server performance??) by simply passing an article through an external
program or script.

Just thinking - regexp on number of commas in the Newsgroups: header. d'Oh!
Similarly

Think thought that leafnode-2 goes a bit mad with .* in an expression, it
seems to match anything, regardless of anything else in the line.

One think I was thinking of doing was setting up a system so that if a post
was killed when followups would automatically be killed and so would their
followups and so on. Could be a good way of getting rid of garbage where
otherwise good posters follow-up people I don't want to see posts from.

Re: News - Leafnode or alternatives?

On Thu, 07 Feb 2008 20:55:13 +0000, Peter Chant wrote:
>>> currently use leafnode-2. What do other people use for news servers?
>>> Like using knode plus leafnode-2 - prefer carring out the kill filing
>>> on the server. Thing is, want to go some killfilling that is beyond
>>> what the current snapshot of leafnode-2 offers
>>
>> Such as?
>>
> Max cross-posts would be a good start. Crossposts to certain
> newsgroups.

I can't claim to have kept up with leafnode, but dropping all posts that
were crossposted to more than a set number of groups used to be a trivial
edit in the config. ISTR that I only had to uncomment the relevant line
and think of a number.

Re: News - Leafnode or alternatives?

* Peter Chant wrote in alt.os.linux.slackware:
> SINNER wrote:
>
>> * Peter Chant wrote in alt.os.linux.slackware:
>>
>>> Chaps,
>>>
>>> currently use leafnode-2. What do other people use for news
>>> servers? Like using knode plus leafnode-2 - prefer carring out the
>>> kill filing on the server. Thing is, want to go some killfilling
>>> that is beyond what the current snapshot of leafnode-2 offers
>>
>> Such as?
>>
>
> Max cross-posts would be a good start. Crossposts to certain
> newsgroups. Leafnode-2 has replaced leafnode's filters with regular
> expressions - I think this was why I switched from leafnode to
> leafnode 2. If comes to the worst my delve into source and see if I
> could add functionality (and kill server performance??) by simply
> passing an article through an external program or script.

Maxcrossposts is still available in leafnode-2 in the filterfile if I am
not mistaken.
>
> Just thinking - regexp on number of commas in the Newsgroups: header.
> d'Oh! Similarly

I just do this in slrn since leafnode is local the expensive nature of the
filter is unseen, BUT you can move it to XREF instead and since it is in
the XOVER (newsgroups is not) is wont be expensive anyway and it should be
fine.
>
> newsgroups=.*
> pattern=^Newsgroups:.*alt\.alien\.vampire\.flonk\. flonk\.flonk
>
> Think thought that leafnode-2 goes a bit mad with .* in an expression,
> it seems to match anything, regardless of anything else in the line.
>
> One think I was thinking of doing was setting up a system so that if a
> post was killed when followups would automatically be killed and so
> would their followups and so on. Could be a good way of getting rid
> of garbage where otherwise good posters follow-up people I don't want
> to see posts from.

I would never allow someone to poison a thread that way, different strokes

--
David

Re: News - Leafnode or alternatives?

On Thu, 7 Feb 2008, Peter Chant wrote:
>
> Chaps,
>
> currently use leafnode-2. What do other people use for news servers? Like

We use dnews, its not free, but very powerful, if you have thousands of
users, its excellent, and very resource kind, which is unusual for a news
server

I dont too much like netwin's repalcement for it (surgenews), too mch
mucking about and many of dnews features are not included.

> news admin but too much to forget if you only tinker with the config once a
> year.

Dnews is configure and forget, I cant remember the last time anyone
tinkered with its config file, ahh looks like it was September '06 when we
changed to adding authentication access as well as IP based.

Re: News - Leafnode or alternatives?

I'm using Leafnode-1.11.6 and it has a 'maxcrosspost' option in its
config file.
> Crossposts to certain newsgroups.

This can be set in Leafnodes filterfile:
^Newsgroups:.*[, ]rec\.photo\.digital$
^Newsgroups:.*[, ]rec\.photo\.digital,
> Leafnode-2 has replaced leafnode's filters with regular expressions

Leafnode-1.11.6's filter is using regular expressions.
--
Thomas O.

This area is designed to become quite warm during normal operation.

Re: News - Leafnode or alternatives?

On 2008-02-07, Peter Chant wrote:
> currently use leafnode-2. What do other people use for news servers? Like
> using knode plus leafnode-2 - prefer carring out the kill filing on the
> server. Thing is, want to go some killfilling that is beyond what the
> current snapshot of leafnode-2 offers and both that and leafnode don't seem
> to be undergoing much develment.

Mind you if you have a closer look at release dates you will see a
pattern of regular but perhaps not frenzied updates:

Re: News - Leafnode or alternatives?

On 2008-02-07, Mark South wrote:
> I can't claim to have kept up with leafnode, but dropping all posts that
> were crossposted to more than a set number of groups used to be a trivial
> edit in the config. ISTR that I only had to uncomment the relevant line
> and think of a number.

The file filters.example gives this example:

### do not fetch articles posted to more than five groups
### Note: this will in many cases only work after the article
### has been downloaded, so it's not too efficient for your
### bandwidth, but it keeps your newsgroups tidy unless your
### newsreader tracks crossposts -- not many do :-(
maxcrosspost = 5
action = kill

Re: News - Leafnode or alternatives?

SINNER wrote:
> Maxcrossposts is still available in leafnode-2 in the filterfile if I am
> not mistaken.
>

Either you are or I am!!!!!!

If I include

maxcrosspost=5

with or without action=kill

then applyfilter responds with filter file not found. Remove
them and it works. I think that leafnode 2 is currently part way through a
major filter revamp.
>>
>> Just thinking - regexp on number of commas in the Newsgroups: header.
>> d'Oh! Similarly
>
> I just do this in slrn since leafnode is local the expensive nature of the
> filter is unseen, BUT you can move it to XREF instead and since it is in
> the XOVER (newsgroups is not) is wont be expensive anyway and it should be
> fine.
> v

Never really _got_ slrn. Can't see how filtering on the XREF header would
work as it only lists my local machine, the article no and the one
newsgroup.

>
> I would never allow someone to poison a thread that way, different strokes
>
>

Yes, but it would kill only there person I wanted not to read and followups,
not the rest of the thread. I'm only killing it for me!

Re: News - Leafnode or alternatives?

Res wrote:

> We use dnews, its not free, but very powerful, if you have thousands of
> users, its excellent, and very resource kind, which is unusual for a news
> server
>

0.001 thousand users...
> I dont too much like netwin's repalcement for it (surgenews), too mch
> mucking about and many of dnews features are not included.
>
>
>> news admin but too much to forget if you only tinker with the config once
>> a year.
>
>
> Dnews is configure and forget, I cant remember the last time anyone
> tinkered with its config file, ahh looks like it was September '06 when we
> changed to adding authentication access as well as IP based.
>

That was my trouble, I touched INN every time I upgraded Slack, every other
slack version roll. Long enough to forget the tricks and tips.

Still, less cryptic than editing sendmail.cf files...

( still add DMpetezilla.co.uk to my sendmail.cf when I update slackware!
Never sussed how sendmail.m4 simplified things. Scary )

Re: News - Leafnode or alternatives?

Keith Keller wrote:
> Well, in all honesty it doesn't do a whole lot--it connects to an
> upstream nntp server to retrieve messages, and services nntp clients and
> sends them articles. Obviously a package like innd is much more
> involved, but that's the point of leafnode, to be a small nntp server
> for a small site.

Well, yes, but as I've not written and news server code*, and knowing the
byzantine horror of INN config you comment above could equate to:

I'll simply got to medical school, become a scientist and then I'll cure
cancer!

;-)

Well, I did write an autoposter script in expect that used the I-have
protocol to talk to INN - that seemed quite painless and worked - I was
surprised.

Re: News - Leafnode or alternatives?

On Thu, 7 Feb 2008, Peter Chant wrote:
>> Dnews is configure and forget, I cant remember the last time anyone
>> tinkered with its config file, ahh looks like it was September '06 when we
>> changed to adding authentication access as well as IP based.
>>
>
> That was my trouble, I touched INN every time I upgraded Slack, every other
> slack version roll. Long enough to forget the tricks and tips.

I've used slapt-get up distro upgrade for many releases now, it doesnt
touch Dnews, since it did not install it
>
> Still, less cryptic than editing sendmail.cf files...

Re: News - Leafnode or alternatives?

On 2008-02-07, Peter Chant wrote:

[...]
> If I include
>
> maxcrosspost=5
>
> with or without action=kill
>
> then applyfilter responds with filter file not found. Remove
> them and it works. I think that leafnode 2 is currently part way through a
> major filter revamp.

Seems a little odd as it works well here. Please forgive me for asking
what may be a very obvious question but you /have/ set the following:

## If you want to filter out certain regular expressions in the header,
## create a "filterfile" (how this is done is explained in the README)
## and set (optional):
filterfile = /etc/leafnode/filters

Re: News - Leafnode or alternatives?

On 2008-02-07, Peter Chant wrote:
> Chaps,
>
> currently use leafnode-2. What do other people use for news servers? Like
> using knode plus leafnode-2 - prefer carring out the kill filing on the
> server. Thing is, want to go some killfilling that is beyond what the
> current snapshot of leafnode-2 offers and both that and leafnode don't seem
> to be undergoing much develment.
>
> Could likely do what I want in INN - stopped using that years back when I
> found I could not get suck to work for some unknown reason - and it was
> simply too much trouble to configure - OK if you play with it weekly as a
> news admin but too much to forget if you only tinker with the config once a
> year.
>
> Pete
>
>

With a local newspool, which slrnpull and leafnode provide, you aren't limited
to what either your newsreader or local server can do. You can perform any
kind of filtering on the contents of the newspool, before opening it in your
newsreader, with shell scripts and other external utilities.

For instance: I have a script that deletes all responses to killed posts
from my newspool before slrn comes up.

You'll never find a pre-packaged app that will do everything you want.
They are all written by people to do what _they_ want.

Tom

--
calhobbit (at)
gmail [DOT] com

Re: News - Leafnode or alternatives?

andrew wrote:
> Seems a little odd as it works well here. Please forgive me for asking
> what may be a very obvious question but you /have/ set the following:
>

Not at all, can anyone claim they never make simple errors?
> ## If you want to filter out certain regular expressions in the header,
> ## create a "filterfile" (how this is done is explained in the README)
> ## and set (optional):
> filterfile = /etc/leafnode/filters
>
> in the /etc/leafnode/config file? It is commented out by default.

For some reason I have commented that out and replaced it with:

filterfile = //etc/leafnode/config

probally trial and error. Think I ought to confirm I have the latest source
and rebuild this weekend.

Re: News - Leafnode or alternatives?

Tom Newton wrote:
>
> With a local newspool, which slrnpull and leafnode provide, you aren't
> limited to what either your newsreader or local server can do. You can
> perform any kind of filtering on the contents of the newspool, before
> opening it in your newsreader, with shell scripts and other external
> utilities.
>

Yes, but does this not confuse the server as artcles go missing. Much
neater to filter as the articles are fetched surely.
> For instance: I have a script that deletes all responses to killed posts
> from my newspool before slrn comes up.
>

Yes, have written scripts to scan the news spool for other reasons.
> You'll never find a pre-packaged app that will do everything you want.
> They are all written by people to do what _they_ want.

Yes, INN provided a tcl (and perl?) interfaces just so you could do that for
filtering.

Re: News - Leafnode or alternatives?

On 2008-02-08, Peter Chant wrote:
> Tom Newton wrote:
>
>>
>> With a local newspool, which slrnpull and leafnode provide, you aren't
>> limited to what either your newsreader or local server can do. You can
>> perform any kind of filtering on the contents of the newspool, before
>> opening it in your newsreader, with shell scripts and other external
>> utilities.
>>
>
> Yes, but does this not confuse the server as artcles go missing.

Not so far.
> Much
> neater to filter as the articles are fetched surely.

Yeh. I think you are right about that.
>
>> For instance: I have a script that deletes all responses to killed posts
>> from my newspool before slrn comes up.
>
> Yes, have written scripts to scan the news spool for other reasons.
>
>> You'll never find a pre-packaged app that will do everything you want.
>> They are all written by people to do what _they_ want.
>
> Yes, INN provided a tcl (and perl?) interfaces just so you could do that for
> filtering.
>

I just got leafnode up and running. Very impressive. I have three servers listed,
one to post and three to fetch. I am surprised at the number of articles my
main server misses. It's a small number, but still...

I don't normally use inetd (or anything like it), so I just bring
it up when using leafnode and then kill it.

Now I've got to learn PCRE's. Wonder why they couldn't use POSIX regexes.